Tip the Hangman on the Way to the Gallows
by Morninglight
Summary: Everyone knows there's a connection between Fade energy and the taint. When Blackwall the Grey Warden finds himself listening to a traumatised Deidre Trevelyan deal with her past in Highever, he knows he can't make it better for her. But at least he can teach the Inquisitor how to live until she must die. Blighted!verse AU which is ironically closer to canon.


Note: Blackwall light smut because of E3. Gods, let this older Grey Warden hunk be romanceable by ladies. Blighted!verse AU; blame the plot nugs.

Characterisations of various companions: we all know Varric, Blackwall is so far head-canon based on the information we have about him, and Iron Bull is an agent of the Ben-Hassrath, so he's more than just muscle. All nicknames are head-canon.

…

It had been a hard battle, even for a veteran of endless war like Blackwall. The Grey Warden removed his old dented helmet and dropped the damned thing on a nearby chair, eyeing the stone bathtub in the corner longingly. Teyrn Fergus Cousland had rebuilt Castle Cousland with the finest dwarven conveniences after his return to Highever, flush with the wealth from a purged Arling of Amaranthine, and Blackwall was honest enough to admit he appreciated the hospitality offered to the Inquisition in the wake of Trevelyan closing the Fade breach. More often than not, he was lucky to get a cold bath in a mucky pond or lukewarm water in a bucket at a questionable inn. So running water heated by fire rune enchantments was a minor miracle sent by the Maker in his eyes.

Trevelyan had taken him, Sera and Solas to enter Castle Cousland via a secret entrance at the back of the fortress by a private dock. Blackwall would have dearly loved to know how she found the small secret door but knew better than to ask. The Inquisitor kept secrets closer to her chest than the Iron Bull, Cassandra, Vivienne and Leliana combined. Used to serving with men and women with equally grim pasts, Blackwall was more accepting of this than his more paranoid compatriots.

_"No. I won't have knowledge of this entrance into Castle Cousland reaching the Qunari, the Orlesians or the Chantry,"_ the woman had answered tersely when questioned by Iron Bull over why her usual rotation of companions was ignored. _"If you don't like it, piss off."_

Varric had been left to sweet-talk Fergus Cousland, the smooth dwarven information broker extracting knowledge about the past few years from the unsuspecting Teyrn with an eloquence Blackwall would have loved when chasing tithes for the Grey. He and Sera were the closest to the Inquisitor, one because he'd helped her adapt to her new abilities in the early days and the other because of previous acquaintance from 'that one time in Jader'.

Unlike other fortresses, Castle Cousland couldn't be claimed for the Inquisition because the Teyrn was still alive. Blackwall huffed a wry laugh at the unexpected disappointment he felt; he must really want that bath. If only Therinfal had dwarven conveniences!

The Warden-Constable was more careful with the rest of his battered armour, placing it on the rack until he just wore the quilted undertunic and thick leather breeches necessary for plate. Teyrn Cousland had offered a squire but Blackwall had declined, saying that he'd spent too long without one to bother now. Truth be told, the warrior was uneasy about anyone outside of the Grey seeing him vulnerable, weary and filthy. Sometimes he wondered why he'd joined the Inquisition.

_At First Warden Brosca's request, of course,_ he reminded himself as he pulled the quilted undertunic over his head, glad to be of the stinking sweaty garment. When washed, it took the damned thing a week to dry and with chaos erupting across Orlais and western Ferelden, he suspected that Trevelyan would not allow her people the luxury of a week's rest unless they were too wounded for Dorian to heal.

The First Warden had survived the original Breach at the Temple of the Sacred Ashes by dint of not caring enough to attend the peace conference between mage and templar. Her opinion of the Chantry, both profane and profoundly negative, had been documented constantly since the days of the Fifth Blight when she singlehandedly gathered armies to defend Ferelden against the darkspawn. The blunt, pragmatic dwarf genuinely believed that if the Chantry defeated the mages, then they would come for the Grey Wardens next.

_"Blackwall, you're the smartest bastard nearest to this Trevelyan woman I can trust,"_ she told him via mage-message. _"Besides, you joined up to save the world. So go save the world and see if this Inquisition can be trusted."_

So far Blackwall had concluded that Trevelyan was a complicated mixture of altruism, bitter sarcasm and anti-Orlesian prejudice. Her accent was difficult to pin down, shifting between northern Fereldan to Jaderite constantly, but it was always beautifully enunciated and peppered with Old Alamarri phrases the Grey Warden only recalled because of his Starkhaven peasant mother. Leliana had noted Trevelyan was a Waking Sea surname derived from some mythical Disciple of Andraste who had outridden a Tevinter magister's drowning of his home on a shining white horse. The Inquisitor's first name, rarely used, was Deidre – Old Alamarri for 'sorrow'.

He raked a hand covered in dried blood through greasy long hair and grunted sourly. Blackwall was content to be a Grey Warden, having willingly embraced the Joining and the isolation it brought, but he was man enough to admit he wished it would be a little less disgusting. Demon spume was nearly as hideous as the taint.

Boots, socks, breeches and underthings soon followed the rough tunic he wore beneath the quilted armouring undertunic until he stood unashamedly naked in the middle of the guest room. A Warden's life had little room for modesty and the door was closed-

"Andraste's tits, Grim, I didn't know you carried two greatswords at a time!" Varric Tethras, having just opened the door, blurted in awe. The dwarf liked to give everyone nicknames, from Sera's 'Trouble' to Dorian's 'Peacock' to Cassandra's 'Princess'. Blackwall was 'Grim' because… well… he was usually taciturn and aloof.

The Grey Warden allowed himself a smirk as he turned around. "I always try to be armed, Tethras. You know that."

The Iron Bull, known for his large appetite for life outside the Qun, grunted approvingly. "Care to wrestle?" the shameless hedonist asked with a smirk.

"Sorry, Beefsteak, you're too much kossith for me," Blackwall answered dryly.

The Tal-Vashoth grinned. "It's either you or Trevelyan in this sorry lot."

"You're not pissed with her over not letting you join today's festivities?" Given it was two men seeing him naked, Blackwall felt comfortable in walking over to the bathtub and pressing the fire rune to get lovely, lovely fresh clean hot water.

"Even if the Inquisitor is an ally, I would not allow her to know the back door to my home," the kossith answered cryptically. "I understand the same behaviour from her."

Blackwall dipped the washing rag into the water and lathered up some lavender-scented soap. "Managed to pry a secret out of the mysterious Inquisitor, have we?"

"I am Ben-Hassrath." Iron Bull glanced over his shoulder to see if anyone was eavesdropping, but so far this wing of Castle Cousland – a remnant of the original fortress – was empty of everyone but the Inquisition. "I know when someone has returned to the place they are from."

Most people who hired the kossith mercenary assumed he was big and dumb, but Blackwall knew there was a seasoned spy beneath the brutish exterior. The Grey Warden had made it abundantly clear to his fellow warrior that Weisshaupt had been alerted to his status as an agent for the Qunari special police, feeling that the honesty Iron Bull had displayed on joining the Inquisition deserved equal return. Varric was less than fond of the Ben-Hassrath agent but (mostly) swallowed his justified anger after the Arishok's attack on Kirkwall to work with the man.

"You know, you've made my life infinitely easier," Varric noted, pulling out a notebook from his sash and thumbing his way through it. "Blonde hair, blue eyes – well, _eye_ – black tattoo, speaks like a noble and likely from Highever. Only one woman she could be and no wonder she's keeping a low profile in Castle Cousland."

Blackwall dipped a ewer into the half-full bathtub and poured it over his head, grunting in relief at the dirt and worse being sluiced away. "Trevelyan's past is none of our business, gentlemen. We have our mission: to end the Fade breaches and find out who the hell's behind them."

"Aren't you the least bit curious about a woman who is literally reshaping the political landscape in three countries?" Varric asked incredulously.

"No," Blackwall lied. The Inquisitor was a mystery, one both he and Weisshaupt wanted solved, but he also knew better than to push. Trevelyan's abilities were currently unknown beyond her ability to navigate through and close Fade breaches; Blackwall had no desire to discover whether she could open the Fade up and trap him inside with a gesture of that glowing green hand.

"Bullshit." On cue, Cassandra arrived. "We all want to know – _need_ to know – who she was before the first Breach."

"And when she traps you in the Fade with a pair of lonely rage demons, don't blame me when I warned you it's none of our damned business," Blackwall told the Nevarran Seeker sardonically.

Cassandra's eyes narrowed. "She can open them too?"

"I don't know, Seeker, but I don't want to find out."

"Well, I've got a bead on her identity now. If you ask me nicely, I might share it later." Varric shut his little notebook with a snap and tucked it back into his sash. "Now, I intend to take advantage of civilised surroundings while I can. Trevelyan wants us on the road tomorrow morning."

Blackwall sighed at the confirmation of the Inquisitor's desire to escape a place that obviously meant something bad to her and nodded. At least he could have a decent bath tonight.

The others scattered, Iron Bull closing the door behind him on the way out. Dorian and Vivienne were dining with the Teyrn's court; though the two mages were politically at odds with each other, they at least shared an appreciation of the finer things in life. Somehow Trevelyan had kept the various members of the Inquisition from killing each other by dint of sheer will and a few sarcastic words.

"If I could open those damned things, I would start with both sides of the Orlesian civil war and end with Dorian's cologne," observed a woman's voice softly from the darkest corner of the bedroom.

Blackwall huffed a laugh. Trevelyan was a damned shadow, though her true genius lay in precision mechanics from picking locks to laying (and disarming) deadly traps. "Iron Bull seems to understand your reticence and Varric is discreet enough to save it for later," he told the Inquisitor.

"I'm not surprised they figured it out. Given my druthers, I'd have never returned here," Trevelyan admitted as she emerged into the light. "We all have our shames. This is one I wished never to revisit."

The Grey Warden grunted in acknowledgement, lathering up his hair until it squeaked. It could be days before he saw another decent bath and he wouldn't let a little thing like his commanding officer seeing him naked to deter from enjoying this. "Any trouble with the Teyrn?"

"So far as Fer- Teyrn Fergus knows, I am greatly weakened by the closing of the Fade breach and therefore resting in preparation for tomorrow's journey," she replied. "He is not the man he was, thanks to that bastard Howe."

_She's a survivor of the Highever massacre,_ Blackwall realised. Her facial scars, one lost eye and the remnants of a faded black tattoo combined with white-blonde hair to make it difficult to determine her age beyond 'not young but not old either'. The Warden pegged her at being somewhere in her late twenties to thirties – old enough to feel responsible for the fall of Highever but young enough to still actively fight with vigor.

"We will need to rest for a more extended time soon," the older man warned her as he began to wash his chest. "The horses are getting more tired every day and Dorian claims we need some downtime so he can restock our elfroot and lyrium potions."

"I know." Much to his surprise, the Inquisitor agreed. "But not here or Redcliffe. There's too many Fade echoes around to make it easy for _me_ to rest."

Solas had explained the existence of 'Fade echoes' as the result of greatly traumatic events leaving an ethereal echo that the sensitive – generally mages or the spiritually aware – could experience at a later date. He, Dorian, Vivienne and Trevelyan were all equally startled at the fact that the last could sense them when she was, to quote Dorian, "two steps off being Tranquil."

"Maker willing, we'll find a nice abandoned palace somewhere with dwarven conveniences and absolutely no Fade echoes," he replied, half-jokingly and half-prayerfully.

Trevelyan's lips quirked to the side. Many people at first mistook her for a male elf because of her tattooed face, fine-boned build and relative lack of height. One oversized blue eye regarded the world while the other was covered with a neatly folded rag instead of the eyepatch Iron Bull preferred. White-blonde hair was messily pulled into a loose ponytail and Blackwall could see she'd set aside the battered leather breastplate and right vambrace, both made of once-gilded blue leather, aside to reveal her worn ecru shirt and fawn breeches.

"So, what brings you here, Inquisitor?" Blackwall asked as he sluiced his hair clean. "I can't imagine it was to see my other greatsword."

"Hiding from Sera and Solas," she answered with a sigh. "She wants me to help out with a prank on Vivienne and he wants to conduct another experiment on my green hand of doom."

Blackwall's gaze went to the hand in question: always gloved but still glowing faintly emerald from the slash in her palm that never healed. "Does it hurt?" he suddenly asked. No one ever thought to ask Trevelyan about the hand unless they were Solas.

"It… throbs. Like I'm feeling my heartbeat through my entire body, but it's the pulse of the Fade breaches, always calling me…" Trevelyan's expression was melancholy. "It was literally chance that brought me to the Temple of Sacred Ashes. I was on pilgrimage to the Merdaine."

The Grey Warden looked away at that. While not considered a mortal sin per se, suicide was still frowned upon by the Chantry unless in particular circumstances (major illness, a fate worse than death or a demise in service to the Maker). But someone who could make the pilgrimage to the Merdaine in the Anderfels and the statue of Andraste there was considered to be absolved of all sins and permitted to leave this sinful earth with assurance of going to the Maker's side. Some of the more darkly humorous Andersfels Grey Wardens noted that the journey was simply arduous enough to make people only too happy to die at the end of it.

"Sorry, Blackwall," Trevelyan apologised softly. "I know the Grey Wardens embrace an extended suicide to protect the rest of the world. I didn't mean to touch on a sore nerve."

"I made my peace with not dying in my bed before I even approached the Grey," he answered gently. "There is a greater strength in knowing how you will die that allows you to protect others and give of yourself without fear."

"Most Wardens I've met are either bitterly resentful or bigger hedonists than Beefsteak," she observed wryly. She had taken to the nicknames Varric dreamed up for the members of the Inquisition, though Vivienne was less than amused about being called 'Sparkles'. Blackwall admitted to using the nickname just to annoy the autocratic almost-First Enchanter now and then.

"That is true, because the current generation were mostly recruited through necessity, not choice," Blackwall conceded. "Thieves, murderers, mercenaries of questionable character and superfluous noble children without the vocation to join the Grey Wardens. Once they see the cost of our life, they tend not to… react well."

"And then they find out a casteless dwarf, a bastard prince and a pickpocket killed the archdemon all by themselves," Trevelyan noted with ironic amusement.

"Alistair died well. A fitting end to the Theirin line, I would say." Blackwall finished washing himself and sighed happily. For a few hours, he was clean. A Grey Warden could ask for no more than that.

"I don't think he had a choice," the Inquisitor said sadly. "It was either die in the Blight or at the hands of Anora or the Guerrins for being… inconvenient."

Blackwall recalled Brosca saying something similar, her tone strangely regretful. _"Poor sod never stood a chance. Eamon was trying to do a power grab and Anora is nearly as pragmatic as Bhelen. Killing Urthemiel was his only chance to choose his death."_

_ "Why did you make Anora Queen then?"_

_ "Because Alistair was too damned hot-headed. I let him fight Loghain because much as I cared for Duncan, the templar saw him as a dad. Then he went and killed the old bastard before we could make use of him."_

"You seem familiar with the politics of Ferelden," he observed softly, noting the bleak melancholy flickering across her face again.

"I was, once. Things have changed – people have changed – in the past decade." Trevelyan shrugged with faked nonchalance. "Why couldn't have the Fade breaches begun somewhere else?"

Blackwall chuckled. "Like Antiva with its preponderance of baths?"

The Inquisitor grimaced. "Thanks for reminding me I need one of those. Sparkles's been making mabari jokes and I _know_ she's referring to me."

"Use mine," the Warden offered, stepping out of the bathtub and emptying it so she could have clean water. "That way you can continue to dodge Trouble and Dreamer."

"You just want to see me naked," Trevelyan responded with a wry smirk but proceeded to undress, obviously as unbothered by being seen undressed as Blackwall himself.

"Why not?" he asked, surprising himself. "It's either you or Beefsteak."

She paused, breeches halfway down her legs after she'd kicked off her worn boots. "And Beefsteak's too horny for your tastes?"

"Something like that."

Trevelyan turned away from him, leaving Blackwall to wonder if his implied offer had crossed the line between soldier and commander. The Inquisitor was mostly informal, more at ease with Sera and himself than anyone else – mostly because they respected her privacy and asked few questions – but had made it clear that in battle, her decisions were final unless there was a clear problem with them that could be articulated in a minute or less. So far, the strategy had worked.

But she finished removing her breeches and then her shirt, revealing a back seamed with claw scars. "How did that happen?" Blackwall asked, trying to break the awkward silence.

"Wyvern, Duc Prosper's estate," she immediately answered. "Some idiot noble hired me to help kill the critter so he could gain some ground in the Game. It ended with him trying to jump the Champion of Kirkwall and friends. Wyvern landed on me and I played dead until Hawke and buddies left."

Blackwall whistled. Wyverns were dangerous creatures. "Is Hawke as bad as they say?"

"Hex-wielding maleficar? Worse than you can imagine," Trevelyan replied with a shudder, breastband dropping to the ground. Blackwall reminded himself to speak with Varric, the treasurer of the Inquisition, to discreetly restock the ladies' undergarments because the Inquisitor's were little more than rags. "I think the Chantry made a rod for their own back with the treatment of the mages in Kirkwall, but Hawke reminded me of why those fears exist in the first place."

"And yet he became Viscount for a time," Blackwall noted sardonically.

"Hypocrisy, thy name is Hawke," Trevelyan agreed. Back still to Blackwall, she untied her loincloth and let it flutter to the ground, revealing slim hips and a small backside. She hadn't said no to the Grey Warden's offer nor had she left the bedroom. He dared to hope the awkwardness would pass.

"I've never known you to be this chatty," he said instead as she walked towards the bathtub and leaned over to turn on the hot water.

"This from the man who rarely strings more than two words together unless it's about darkspawn or duty," she retorted, removing the rag that covered her missing eye and unbinding her long white-blonde hair.

"If you drank with us more, you might see a different side to me," Blackwall growled, nettled by her deflection of his comment.

"I'm not sure it's wise for a woman who has Fade energy boiling out of a bloodless gash in her hand to drink alcohol," Trevelyan countered grimly. He noticed that she still wore the light leather glove on her hand and reached out to touch her shoulder.

"Have you removed that glove since the… First Breach?" he asked.

"Not around anyone but Dorian or Solas," she answered tersely.

"Let me see." Blackwall knew that her hand, the sign and source of her power to close Fade breaches, was an infected wound on her psyche. He wouldn't pry into her identity, not in the place she hailed from where she hid from the Teyrn out of shame, but he would try and coax her to pull the scab off this so it might heal cleanly.

"You're going to insist, aren't you?" Trevelyan sounded more annoyed than anything else.

"I'm a Warden. If it's hideously deformed, it won't scare me."

The Inquisitor sighed, turning around to face him with her hand outstretched. "Fine, go poke and prod at it! You can't be any more annoying than Dorian and Solas!"

"You've not let Vivienne examine it?" While the aristocratic Circle mage specialised in Primal and Elemental magics, she was no slouch as a scholar.

"I wouldn't trust Madame de Fer as far as I could throw her," Trelelyan answered flatly. "She's an Orlesian through and through."

"For me, it's the fact she's more or less sat on her arse in a tower until now, but I share your feeling," Blackwall assured her, gently taking the hand and peeling off the… quite frankly, rank leather glove. Immediately light boiled out of the jagged slash in her palm, eerie green-black writhing with inchoate shapes.

Trevelyan jerked when Blackwall ran a finger across her palm, directly across the mark. It felt like the Fade had, that stuffed-wool feeling he got when surrounded by a thick fog combined with a humming that resonated with his taint. "Your hand needs a good wash, lass," he murmured, bringing it to his nose and sniffing pointedly.

"Shut up," she said pithily.

The Grey Warden found himself echoing one of Dorian's lazily appreciative smiles as he stared down into Trevelyan's unobscured face for the first time. Something had clawed across her right eye, leaving a milky orb and disfiguring the swirling black tattoo around it, but her facial bone structure was delicate. Her nose had been broken a few times, just like any experienced sellsword, yet her lips were full.

"Deidre," he breathed, daring to say her name.

Her sole blue eye narrowed. "When you say it, you have a Starkhaven burr," she observed softly.

"Mother was from Starkhaven," he admitted. "So yes, I know exactly what you called Vivienne and told her it was an Alamarri term of respect."

Trevelyan grinned briefly. "If she tells me to replace my damned armour one more time…"

"I can tell it has sentimental meaning to you," Blackwall observed.

"You could say that," she agreed, looking away. He was touching on the raw nerve of her 'true' identity.

Blackwall released her Fade-touched hand and turned to stop the flow of hot water. "I chose the burden of a Warden's life of my own free will," he murmured. "I knew I would have an ugly death. I accepted that and have found comfort in it. But you… you didn't ask for any of this, Deidre: Highever, the Blight, getting up in Hawke's mess and then the Fade rift at the Temple of Sacred Ashes… Still, I will say to you what I have said to every unwilling Warden I meet: the darkness is within you now and only death will get it out. So you can be dragged kicking and screaming to the hangman or walk with your head high, a smile on your lips and tip the bastard on the way to the gallows."

"I never pegged you for a philosopher," she observed, a rare smile curving her lips.

"You should drink with me more," he grinned. "With _us_, Inquisitor. Whatever we were before, now we are the Inquisition: _your_ Inquisition. Join us, do not hide behind what title they have given you…"

He leaned closer to breathe in her hair, "Do not hide behind the sins of the past, whatsoever they may be. Most of us don't care – and those who do serve other masters or themselves. I will stand at your back or as your shield as necessary."

"Thank you…" Trevelyan sighed like a woman relinquishing a heavy burden. "I may yet still seek the Lady of the Merdaine when this is over but I will see it through to the bitter end."

That was about as much a Grey Warden could ask for. Blackwall smiled, daring to touch the scars on her cheek. "Don't suppose I could join you in the bath? You'll be depriving me of it tomorrow."

Her gaze darted around the bedroom, expression haunted. Blackwall cursed under his breath as he realised she was seeing a Fade echo. Sometimes the 'visions' produced useful information but Trevelyan had also been trapped in one or two. "Look at me," he rasped. _"Look at me."_

Trevelyan's eye snapped back into focus. "How do mages not go insane?" she asked softly. "To be so sensitive to the Fade-"

"Determination and a reason to remain strong, I suppose," the Warden answered. "Same way I resist the call of the Old Gods."

"You make it sound so easy." Trevelyan turned away from him to step into the bathtub. "I guess you might as well jump in."

"How can I refuse such a kind invitation?" Truth be told, even if tonight didn't end in sex, Blackwall was always up for another bath.

Fergus Cousland had provided generous bathtubs, fully large enough for a large Alamarri sod like most Fereldans and Blackwall to lie down in if necessary. It fit him and Trevelyan if they both kneeled, the Inquisitor reaching for the lavender soap with a sigh. "We used to make laurel soap because of the wild laurels that grew outside Castle Cousland," she said sadly. "Howe burned them and now the hill lies bare."

Blackwall remained silent, watching the woman wash herself with quick efficiency. Whereas the Grey Warden gladly luxuriated in hot water and decent food whenever possible, Trevelyan treated them as necessities to be endured. But in the soft light of an enchanted glowstone, he could see the Inquisitor's tanned skin pale to an almost porcelain hue where her clothing and armour typically covered. She was wiry from both combat and deliberate self-denial, a ring of jagged scars around one thigh indication of a penitent's cilice.

He still said nothing. Some scars were never to be discussed.

It was more intimate than sex to share a tub with a woman and simply watch her bathe, knowing that she guarded her privacy for more reasons than prudence. Trevelyan trusted Blackwall more than anyone else in the Inquisition, even more than Cassandra, the first to find her after the First Breach.

"Can you get my back?" she asked, breaking the silence.

"Of course, lass," he replied.

She turned around in the bathtub until her back was facing him. Trevelyan wasn't a tall woman but her lean body made her look longer than what she was. Blackwall lathered up the washrag and scrubbed her back faster than he would have liked, feeling the ridges of the wyvern scars beneath his hands. "I'll wash your hair too if you like," he offered after sluicing her back clean with a pitcher of water.

"Good idea. Vivienne keeps offering me one of those ridiculous Orlesian hats."

Blackwall laughed softly. "The only person Sparkles says that doesn't need a makeover is Varric."

"I know. Her right eye twitches whenever she sees me in the same old shirt and breeches." Trevelyan's mood was swinging between amused, haunted and her typically sarcastic self. "Asking her to pack only two robes and an extra pair of boots on the road is apparently a great hardship."

"She and Songbird were discussing shoes." Blackwall shuddered dramatically. "Silk ribbons and embroidered puppies. Andraste save us all."

"I never pegged Vivienne for wanting embroidered slippers. She always struck me as the kind of woman to wear boots made from the skin of her enemies, tastefully decorated with gold and gems, of course."

Blackwall barked with laughter. "Don't give her ideas!"

The lavender soap was almost gone between the pair of them, but there was enough to clean Trevelyan's mid-length hair. Sharing a bath with the Inquisitor had been the most intimacy Blackwall had with a woman in… well… a while. He was honest enough to admit he'd like to share more than a bath with her. The Fade energy leaking from her hand pulsed in time to the taint in his blood, leaving him more peaceful since the last time he'd been to the Deep Roads.

"I shouldn't feel so peaceful, not in this place," Trevelyan murmured. Even though he knew her first name was Deidre, Blackwall felt more comfortable with calling her by her last name.

"I think there's a connection between your hand and my taint," the Warden admitted gruffly. "The last time I felt this much at home was in the Deep Roads."

"That tells more than I want to know about the life of a Warden," she told him with more sympathy than he expected from the sarcastic Inquisitor.

They sat there together as the water slowly cooled. Trevelyan eventually leaned back against Blackwall, using him as a backrest while he rested against the bathtub's comfortably rounded side. Fergus Cousland had certainly thought of everything in his rebuilding of Castle Cousland.

"I'm not surprised these are the guest quarters now," she finally observed. "Before Rendon Howe, they were the family quarters."

"How old were you when Castle Cousland fell?" he murmured.

"Eighteen."

Old enough to be counted an adult but too young to really deal with something like treachery from a trusted friend. No wonder she was suffering from survivor's guilt. Blackwall sighed and pressed his lips against her damp hair.

"Shall we tip the hangman on the way to the gallows?"

Much to his surprise, Trevelyan burst out laughing. "That is the most warped pickup line I've ever heard," she told him.

The Warden grinned. "Well, most of the women I'm used to are Broodmothers, so…"

"I'm sure it worked wonders on them." Trevelyan rose to her feet and stepped out of the bath, reaching for the length of linen used as a towel. She wrapped it around herself like a cloak and stared into nothingness for a moment.

"Deidre." Blackwall dared her name once more.

"I am that now, aren't I?" she asked of the air. "Deidre Trevelyan."

Blackwall hauled himself out of the bathtub, allowing it to empty once more. "You're who you want to be."

She removed the towel, tossing to him. The Warden dried himself briskly and then hung the cloth neatly over its brass railing for the servants to get tomorrow. No need to make their lives more difficult when they had to deal with demanding souls like Vivienne and Dorian.

Out of her battered armour and ragged clothing, the Inquisitor wasn't… precisely softer or more vulnerable in appearance, but more approachable. Her white-blonde hair hung about her face and there was something heart-rending about the white orb of her missing eye being visible.

"Deidre," he repeated, stepping closer and laying a hand against her cheek gently.

"Blackwall," she sighed, leaning into that touch.

"Stop punishing yourself for the past," he breathed. "You were a lass. You could have more stopped Rendon Howe than you could have the sea."

"I escaped by currach, intending to go to Waking Sea to raise my cousin's bannorn. But I lost consciousness and woke up on a ship out of Kirkwall called the White Horse, halfway to Jader. By the time I had the coin to return, Howe and Loghain had closed the borders. By the time the borders were open, the Blight was already over."

Fereldan nobles took their duty to protect the freeholders seriously. The core of Deidre's death wish became clear to Blackwall, a man who embraced duty joyfully and with a clear heart. Circumstance had arranged for her to be unable to fulfil her duty as a Fereldan noblewoman until it was too late; Anora's decree that nobility who'd fled Ferelden during the Blight were to be stripped of their titles and refused entrance back into the kingdom must have been the final boot in the ribs. No wonder she kept her features concealed in Highever, as Fergus Cousland was savage in punishing those he deemed to have failed in their obligations.

Blackwall said nothing but instead drew Deidre into an embrace, ignoring the slow slide of tears down her cheeks and the shaking of her wiry body.

It was the Inquisitor who initiated the kiss, a shy press of the lips against the side of his thick neck. The Warden sighed and slid his hands up her back, callused fingers scraping over ridged scars. Despite her skill at killing and making traps, Deidre's touch was unsure, nervous. If she was atoning for perceived sins, she wouldn't have indulged in sex, he supposed.

Truth be told, he wasn't a lover out of legend himself. Free Marcher by birth, Orlesian by location, Warden by vocation and loner by nature. He had embraced the isolated valour of a Grey Warden's life over a decade ago, accepting that any dalliances he had would be flashes of light in an expanse of darkness and taint.

His taint and the Fade energy leaking from her palm, blessing and bane of her existence, connected them nearly as intimately as a Warden and the darkspawn. Deidre would understand that unearthly crescendo better than almost anyone else outside of the order; he wondered if the Old Gods sang in the Fade too, if the Chantry was correct about the connection between the Black City and the taint.

He drew that gashed palm to his lips, tasting ozone and the tang of lyrium, and deliberately licked it. They cried out in unison as sensation, something that transcended pleasure and pain, whipped through their bodies like the crack of lightning.

"Whatever we were before, now we are the Inquisition," he growled, reminding her of the words she'd uttered the day everyone concerned about the Fade breaches gathered in Therinfal Redoubt. Collected by one indomitable woman…

"I can hear something, almost like music," she mumbled against his throat.

"The Call of the Old Gods, I wager. There is a connection between the taint and the Fade, I believe."

"And you willingly signed up for that? I won't bitch about my life ever again." Then teeth closed on his pulse until he groaned with pleasure.

Blackwall retaliated by digging his callused fingers into Deidre's wiry flesh and dragging her even closer. Lips met hard and fast before he turned gentle, covering that thin body with his own big frame.

"Oh, you have plenty of reason to bitch about your life, lass," the Warden said dryly against her hair. "Just remember to tip the hangman on the way to the gallows."

"If that's some bizarre Warden euphemism for sex…" Deidre's Fade-marked hand slid down Blackwall's chest, drawing out a gasp of pleasure/pain. He was beginning to harden, more from the power thrumming through his veins than any erotic skill of the Inquisitor's.

But it was more than the power that drew him to Deidre. She was so dogged in that stubborn Fereldan manner but without the coarseness that defined so many of the southern nation. He didn't know if she would relinquish her death wish – it was part and parcel of her – but he knew he could trust her to see this through to the end. All the Inquisition knew that, hence why they followed her even when she personally frustrated them.

Blackwall was beyond artifice; it was late and Deidre would have them up with the dawn to travel to the next spot of trouble. So he sought out her pearl with his spare hand, using his thumb to stroke it until she was bucking against his fingers. "When we find that abandoned palace with dwarven conveniences, lass, we'll take a bit more time," he promised hoarsely.

"I'm used to hard and fast," she responded fiercely, blue eye gleaming with more emotion than he'd ever seen from her.

A better man might have brought her to climax before fucking her but… in this, tonight, Blackwall would allow himself selfishness and drive them both upwards together. He picked her up, surprised at how light the Inquisitor was, and laid her down on the bed with legs wide apart. Then it was warmth and wetness, the whip-crack of power as Deidre deliberately tightened her Fade-marked hand on his collarbone, green-black energy radiating out to illuminate the entire room.

A few minutes of frantic thrusting, Blackwall's thumb finding Deidre's pearl again, and they fell over the edge together. In the aftermath, sticky and sated, she yawned once and promptly fell asleep beneath his bulk.

Blackwall huffed another laugh and disentangled himself from her long enough to reach for the light woollen blanket against the spring night chill. Maker willing Deidre Trevelyan, Inquisitor and exile, would come to his bed again and find peace from her burdens while her power eased the loneliness he felt away from his tainted brethren.

…

"Anyone seen Grim or the Inquisitor?" Varric asked testily. He'd taken it upon himself to make sure that everyone was ready to move out by dawn, as was generally Trevelyan's wont, and already missed the feather bed and thick quilt.

"What's the bet they were shagging?" Dorian Pavus, nicknamed 'Peacock' by Varric because of his flamboyant ways, asked sardonically.

Iron Bull smirked. Varric had… difficulties with the Qunari spy/mercenary but so far they were working together without too many incidents. "Ten sovereigns for," the kossith rumbled.

"Ten sovereigns _against_," Solas countered quietly. "The congress between darkspawn taint and Fade energy could be more catastrophic than she would be willing to entertain."

"For," Sera said cheerfully. "She's been checking out his ass in camp."

Vivienne snorted delicately. "I do not bet on such common things."

Cassandra shook her head. "Against. Trevelyan can't afford to be distracted."

Varric was fully aware of who Deidre Trevelyan had been. Coming to Highever must have been difficult for her and like Hawke in Kirkwall, who'd fallen from a snarky apostate to an outright vicious maleficar, the arms of another would likely be a welcome distraction. But he didn't expect Grim to be the man.

The door to the guest room Blackwall had been given opened, revealing the Grey Warden in full plate. "Deidre will be along in a minute, she just needs to armour up."

"She needs a fashion consultant," Vivienne retorted sardonically.

"Next time we're in Jader, you can take me shopping," the Inquisitor snarked from the door to another guest room. She was dressed in her other shirt and breeches, faded blue in colour, and had managed to wash her eye-rag.

"I might do that. I first thought your outfit was a conscious disguise but now I've come to realise, my dear Inquisitor, you have never been properly taught the value of fashion," Vivienne said haughtily.

Deidre strode past the Enchanter and for the door, everyone else falling in behind her. Fergus Cousland hadn't been happy about the Inquisitor refusing to meet him in the Great Hall; it had taken Varric's silver tongue to convince him that it was sheer exhaustion from closing the rift when in reality, it was getting easier for her to manipulate Fade energy every day.

It was still dark outside, only the elven servants stirring and a few night guards yawning into their fists out and about. Fergus had done a bang-up job in repairing Castle Cousland, building the family quarters on the other side of the fortress and turning his old rooms into guest chambers. The man was a harsh ruler but under his command, Highever was now the most prominent port in Ferelden as Cousland ships commanded the trade between Kirkwall, Denerim and Jader.

"Give her a break, Sparkles," Varric advised in Orlesian as they walked through the portcullis that separated the guest quarters from the rest of the castle. "She's a survivor of Howe's massacres and coming here wasn't easy, even if she'll die before admitting it."

The politically savvy mage raised an eyebrow beneath her magnificent horned headdress. "Cousland would make a powerful ally for the Inquisition," she noted. "If she has prior ties-"

"Only if we were to support his claim to the throne against Anora," Dorian pointed out.

"He is what he was made to be by the Blight," Trevelyan said tersely in the same language, her accent an odd hybrid of Jader and Fereldan. "It does not mean I have to like it or wish to deal with it."

_Hard thing to admit your brother's become a merciless bastard,_ Varric thought sadly. They were close to the stables now, the stablehands already busy as Castle Cousland didn't only have a fair part of the Inquisition calling but also any number of petitioners to the Teyrn.

The dwarf was unsurprised to find Fergus Cousland waiting for them. Deidre stopped dead in her tracks, Fade-marked hand clenching into a fist, as the tall, broad-shouldered man with greying dark hair stepped forward, bog-brown eyes hard and grim.

"I trust you are recovered from yesterday's travails?" Fergus asked formally but with an edge to his voice.

"I am. Thank you for the hospitality," she answered with cold precision. Grim moved to her right shoulder and Princess to her left pointedly, the Warden and the Seeker willing to defend her to the death if need be.

"Trevelyan. That is a Waking Sea name," Cousland observed quietly.

"My mother's people were Trevelyans from the low side," the Inquisitor responded tersely.

"Ah. My mother, Eleanor, came from the high side." Fergus sighed and for a moment, Varric fancied he saw the man who was once happily married to a beautiful Antivan girl with a strapping son and loving parents. "You have the Trevelyan look, it's true. So did my sister."

"The Waking Sea blood tends to breed true," Trevelyan agreed.

"I guess this is the part where you tell me you have no interest in Fereldan internal politics," Fergus noted sardonically.

"If I didn't know better, I'd have to get my mages to check you for use of blood magic." Trevelyan folded her arms, voice curt. "I need to get going. Another Fade breach has opened in the south and with the connections between them and places of great trauma, I suspect it's likely Redcliffe."

"Miles to go before you sleep?" Fergus laughed but the expression was mirthless. "We have more in common than you'll ever know, Inquisitor. If Rendon Howe taught me one thing, it was that evil never rests and that kindness isn't an option in facing it."

"Easy, Trouble," Dorian murmured to Sera as her hand tightened on her dagger.

"There's a difference between pragmatism and ruthlessness," Trevelyan retorted. "Now if you'll excuse me, Teyrn, we're wasting time."

_No one could ever accuse Deidre Trevelyan of being diplomatic,_ Varric noted ruefully as she walked past Fergus. Or maybe she didn't want to risk being recognised.

The Teyrn was surrounded by guards but the Inquisitor had eight persons of mass destruction, including herself. He nodded curtly and got out of the way. "If you hadn't saved Highever from the demons, this would have ended differently, Trevelyan," he said warningly.

"I know." Deidre's voice was sad for a moment as she looked over her shoulder. "Maker with you, Teyrn Cousland."

Then she mounted her swaybacked horse and rode it out of the gates, not looking back. Everyone else followed her, strangely subdued for a change.

"Not a word, Varric," she said when the dwarf nudged his pony to speed up and join her.

"I wasn't going to say a thing," he protested. "Well, not about your brother."

Her gaze was icy. "What do you want then?"

"I just thought you should know there's bets on whether you and Grim are screwing or not, that's all."

She smiled slightly. "Well, you have to tip the hangman on the way to the gallows."

With that cryptic comment, she urged her horse into a trot to outrun him, leaving Varric both mystified and intrigued.

_You know, I could make something from that,_ he decided. _Two lonely souls, burdened by duties beyond others' comprehension, meeting and falling in love in the days before their doom…_

As Hawke's story had taught him, good endings only happened to the heroes in children's tales. But the dwarf was certain that Deidre would end the Fade breaches, find the sod responsible for them, and kick them from here to the Black City.

So he wouldn't say a damn thing about who or what she did because, as she said, you had to tip the hangman on the way to the gallows.


End file.
